De strategematibus

 in this book for both construction and use, proceeding in order, we have set it forth, having written it down systematically. And let no nitpicker of

 it is necessary first to go through and inspect the positions of the cities accurately, and having made the protection of one's own people unharmed ab

 from a weaving of freshly-cut willow rods or of tamarisk or linden, these also being pointed at the front up to the ridge at the top. And the so-calle

 to have in exchange. But if we wish to take the city by a theft in the night, with the citizens being ignorant of our arrival and unprepared, when win

 with slender and close-set posts, rather than thick and widely-spaced ones, with a plank placed above and below, so that the posts, giving way at the

 entering under and turning back upon the so-called socket-plate or a kind of headpiece, with a rule lying on the ground which brings 221 it forward an

 concerning their limbs and the suspensions belonging to the single timbers at intervals on both ram-bearing tortoises and towers and double ladders, a

 to be brought forward easily and constructed from small pieces of wood, and not one very large one, because it is made from large and hard-to-find tim

 the movement. If we wish to ascertain the thickness of the walls and to observe the actions of the enemy and to survey the host from behind, to see th

 Let them be 30 each and at the height of 20 let them receive the pin and 20 is two-thirds of 30. And let the parts coming down from the uprights be

 they made and on all they always set aside from the top the fifth part of the base. But Apollodorus, constructing the tower more impressively at its

 he made these uprights equal, so that their joints might not be near one another, but every joint alternate, being distant from the other, and it migh

 so that both the 60 cubits of the height and the 17 of the length of the base itself will have the same proportion to the feet, and likewise also the

 of a place, they batter the upper parts of the walls with rams for anything standing up and projecting is easily broken and easily demolished, as it

 projecting from the mouths to which it is necessary to be wound with the tensioner by means of shoulder or back sinews of all animals except pigs, pa

 let it admit the construction of the aforementioned ladders. And let the one that is about to be raised be decked with planks over its whole length, a

 from below, in front of the enemy they fall easily and are held fast from behind, but from above they are cut to a fine point, converging at the top a

 will be shown in the account for the two and a half cubits of the diameter measure the 15 six times, and the 10 four times, and the 30 twelve times,

 the ships, 270 the machine may be preserved upright and without falling, And against the winds it is necessary to have ready the prepared defenses aga

 places it against the other bank of the river, fitting it along its entire length, with the multitude gathered and ready for the battle line. And thos

De strategematibus

SIEGE INSTRUCTIONS. 197 As many of the siege engines as are by nature difficult and hard to achieve, either because of the varied and hard-to-understand nature of their description, or because their concepts are difficult to grasp or, rather, incomprehensible to the many, and perhaps (comprehensible only) through the good judgment of epitomizers, since they do not possess clarity and ease of understanding even from the application of the diagrams themselves, inasmuch as they are not easy and known to all, nor indeed easy for construction and building, and requiring only the engineers who invented and wrote about them for their explanation and clarification; such as the siege works composed by Apollodorus 198 for the emperor Hadrian, the treatises on siegecraft by Athenaeus for Marcellus, set forth from the works of Agesistratus and other wise men, the works of Biton for Attalus on the construction of war machines, collected from various earlier engineers ... on the making of projectiles, and the counter-engines for sieges, both defensive and administrative, and various instructions for the defense and capture of gates; these things, in accordance with the general treatise on mechanics composed long ago by those men, as being now entirely foreign and hard to understand for the many, both because of the oblivion that has passed with time, but also because the names of the sciences happen to be unfamiliar in common speech, we judged it proper not to include in the present book; so that, with the prevailing obscurity in them distracting the mind to itself, one might not also fail in the understanding of clear things. but only the works of Apollodorus, which we have completely clarified through elaborations and additional thoughts and brought to a conclusion, having ourselves also found and added very many consistent things. But as many things as we have collected sporadically 199 from the rest, which are easy to understand and truly comprehensible, being axioms of common understanding according to Anthemius, and able to be understood from the problem and diagram alone, requiring no teaching or interpretation, these things also having been refashioned by us with plainness of words and simplicity of speech for greater clarity, so that they can be easily built and constructed by ordinary people, these things we have interwoven with those of Apollodorus, having defined them precisely with their diagrams, and have set them in order, knowing that even a diagram alone, being well-defined, can render manifest that which is obscure and hard to express about the construction. There is a need for these engines for a siege; of various and differently shaped tortoises, such as diggers, earth-movers, ram-bearers, wheeled screens, and of the very light wicker shields recently invented, and for rolling weights, wedge-shaped rams of wickerwork tortoises, and of wooden five-cubit caltrops, of composite and single-beam rams, of easily-procured portable wooden towers, various kinds of composite and very light ladders, again a defense both against weights raised on high and against things set on fire by 0 fire-throwers, a look-out for observing things inside, various tunnels for various walls, ingenious bridges for all sorts of ditches, machines for mounting walls without ladders, infallible siege engines for coastal cities, mass crossings of many crowds in order over rivers. To construct these things according to the ancient master-builders: easy to procure in material, varied in their shapes, very small in their measurements, light in their weights, able to be made quickly by ordinary craftsmen, easy to repair, hard to plot against, easy to transport, safe, hard to break, being easy to assemble for use and easy to dismantle. And all these things, being able to easily supply strategic knowledge for a siege, in

De strategematibus

ΠΑΡΑΓΓΕΛΜΑΤΑ ΠΟΛΙΟΡΚΗΤΙΚΑ. 197 Ὅσα μὲν τῶν πολιορκητικῶν μηχανημάτων δυσχερῆ καὶ δυσέφικτα πέφυκεν, εἴτε διὰ τὸ ποικίλον καὶ δυσδιάγνωστον τῆς τούτων καταγραφῆς, εἴτε διὰ τὸ τῶν νοημάτων δύσληπτον ἢ μᾶλλον εἰπεῖν ἀκατάληπτον τοῖς πολλοῖς, ἴσως δὲ τῇ εὐγνωμοσύνῃ περιληπτῶν, ὡς μηδ' ἀπ' αὐτῆς τῆς τῶν σχημάτων ἐπιθέσεως τὸ σαφὲς κεκτημένων καὶ εὔληπτον, ἅτε μὴ πᾶσιν ὄντων εὐκόλων τε καὶ γνωστῶν, μήτε μὴν πρὸς κατασκευὴν καὶ τεκτόνευσιν εὐχερῶν, μόνων δὲ τῶν ταῦτ' ἐξευρηκότων καὶ συγγεγραφηκότων μηχανικῶν εἰς τὴν τούτων ἐξάπλωσιν καὶ σαφήνειαν δεομένων· οἷον τὰ Ἀπολλοδώρου 198 πρὸς Ἀδριανὸν αὐτοκράτορα συνταχθέντα πολιορκητικά, τὰ Ἀθηναίου πρὸς Μάρκελλον ἐκ τῶν Ἀγησιστράτου καὶ ἑτέρων σοφῶν πρὸς πολιορκίαν ἐκτεθέντα ὑπομνήματα, τὰ Βίτωνος πρὸς Ἄτταλον περὶ κατασκευῆς πολεμικῶν ὀργάνων ἐκ διαφόρων συλλεγέντα προγενεστέρων μηχανικῶν ... βελοποιϊκά, καὶ τὰ πρὸς πολιορκίαν ἀντιμηχανήματα φυλακτικά τε καὶ διαιτητικά, ἐπί τε συστάσει καὶ ἁλώσει πύλων διάφορα παραγγέλματα· ταῦτα κατὰ τὴν πάλαι συνταχθεῖσαν τῶν ἀνδρῶν καθολικὴν τεχνολογίαν ὡς τοῖς πολλοῖς νῦν ἀπεξενωμένα πάντη καὶ δυσδιάγνωστα, διά τε τὴν ἐκ τοῦ χρόνου παραδραμοῦσαν λήθην, ἀλλ' ὅτι καὶ ἀσυνήθη κοινοῖς τυγχάνει λόγοις τὰ τῶν ἐπιστημῶν ὀνόματα, τῇ παρούσῃ βίβλῳ μὴ ἐντάξαι πρέπον ἐκρίναμεν· ὡς ἂν μὴ, τῆς ἐπιπολαζούσης ἐν αὐτοῖς ἀσαφείας τὸν νοῦν ἀντιπερισπώσης πρὸς ἑαυτήν, καὶ περὶ τὴν τῶν σαφῶν τις ἀτονήσῃ διάγνωσιν. μόνα δὲ τὰ Ἀπολλοδώρου, ἅπερ εἰς τέλος διασαφήσαντες δι' ἐπεργασιῶν καὶ ἐπενθυμημάτων συνεπεράναμεν, πλεῖστα καὶ αὐτοὶ σύμφωνα προσευρόντες καὶ παραθέμενοι. Ὅσα δὲ ἐκ τῶν λοιπῶν σποράδην 199 συνελεξάμεθα εὔγνωστα καὶ πρὸς ἀλήθειαν εὐκατάληπτα, κοινῆς ἐννοίας ἀξιώματα κατὰ Ἀνθέμιον ὄντα καὶ ἀπὸ μόνου προβλήματος καὶ σχηματισμοῦ καταλαμβάνεσθαι δυνάμενα, μηδεμιᾶς διδασκαλίας ἢ ἑρμηνείας δεόμενα, ἰδιωτείᾳ λέξεων καὶ ἁπλότητι λόγου ὑφ' ἡμῶν καὶ αὐτὰ μεταποιηθέντα πρὸς τὸ σαφέστερον, ὥστε παρὰ τῶν τυχόντων εὐκόλως καὶ τεκτονεύεσθαι καὶ κατασκευάζεσθαι, τοῖς τοῦ Ἀπολλοδώρου καὶ ταῦτα συμπλέξαντες σὺν τοῖς σχήμασιν ἀκριβῶς διορισάμενοι κατετάξαμεν, εἰδότες ὅτι δύναται καὶ μόνος σχηματισμὸς καλῶς διορισθεὶς τὸ περὶ τὴν κατασκευὴν σκοτεινὸν καὶ δύσφραστον κατάδηλον ἀπεργάζεσθαι. Χρεία δέ ἐστι τούτων εἰς πολιορκίαν μηχανημάτων· χελωνῶν διαφόρων τε καὶ ἑτεροσχήμων, οἷον ὀρυκτρίδων, χωστρίδων, κριοφόρων, προτρόχων καὶ τῶν νῦν ἐκ πλοκῆς ἐφευρεθεισῶν ἐλαφροτάτων λαισῶν, πρὸς δὲ τὰ κυλιόμενα βάρη σφηνοειδῶν ἐμβόλων γερροχελωνῶν, καὶ ξυλίνων πενταπηχῶν τριβόλων, κριῶν συνθέτων τε καὶ μονοξύλων, ξυλοπυργίων φορητῶν εὐπορίστων, κλιμάκων συνθέτων τε καὶ ἐλαφροτάτων εἴδη διάφορα, προφυλακὴ δὲ πάλιν καὶ πρὸς τὰ εἰς ὕψος αἰρόμενα βάρη καὶ πρὸς τὰ ὑπὸ 0 τῶν πυροβόλων ἀναπτόμενα, σκοπὸς εἰς καταθεώρησιν τῶν ἔνδον, διορυγαὶ τειχῶν διαφόρων διάφοροι, διαβάθραι πρὸς παντοίας τάφρους εὐμήχανοι, δίχα κλιμάκων μηχαναὶ τοῖς τείχεσιν ἐπιβαίνουσαι, πολιορκητήρια παραλίων πόλεων ἀπαράπτωτα, πολλῶν ὄχλων κατὰ τάξιν ἀθρόαι ἐπὶ ποταμῶν διαβάσεις. Ταῦτα κατασκευάζειν κατὰ τοὺς πάλαι ἀρχιτέκτονας εὐπόριστα τῇ ὕλῃ, ποικίλα τοῖς σχήμασιν, ἐλάχιστα τοῖς μέτροις, ἐλαφρὰ τοῖς βάρεσιν, ὑπὸ τυχόντων τεχνιτῶν ταχέως γίνεσθαι δυνάμενα, εὐδιόρθωτα, δυσεπιβούλευτα, εὐμετάγωγα, ἀσφαλῆ, δυσκάτακτα, εὐσύνθετα πρὸς τὴν χρείαν ὄντα καὶ εὐδιάλυτα. Ταῦτα δὲ πάντα, στρατηγικὴν ἐπιστήμην ὡς πρὸς πολιορκίαν ῥᾳδίως ἐφοδιάζειν δυνάμενα, ἐν